Peter Obi and the Labour Party had called the witnesses to support their petition against the election of President Bola Tinubu.
In the lead judgement read by Justice Haruna Tsammani held that only three of the 13 witnesses whose statements are on oath, were filed along with the petition.
The court held that the statements of the rejected 10 witnesses were filed after the hearing had started.
The court also rejected the documents, including the report of analysis, tendered by the petitioners through the affected 10 witnesses.
The judge explained that a witness’ statement on oath must be filed along with the petition in accordance with section 285 of the Nigerian constitution, section 137(7) of the Electoral Act 2022, and other provisions.
Tsammani added that once the 21-day window for filing an election petition elapses, the content of the petition cannot be amended.
He submitted that the petitioners were aware of the legal provision relating to the filing of witness statements on oath, yet went ahead to present 10 witnesses without their witness statements on oath earlier filed with the petition, ThePunch reports.
No comments:
Post a Comment